Women who struggle with sexual addiction, relational or love addiction or sexual mismanagement have often times, been affected by various forms of sexual abuse or trauma.

During the years I spent leading a sexual addiction recovery group for women at the Willow Creek Community Church (mega-church), I realized that we all had similar pieces to our stories. I found that usually one or more of the following traumas or abuses had occurred during our childhoods.

1. Sexual Molestation

This could include any adult taking advantage of a child’s sexuality for the adult’s benefit or “high.” It could be inappropriate touch to the child or touching of the adult by the child, intentional exposure of the adult’s genitals to the child, penetration of the child, photographing the child without clothing or watching the child undress. This is not an all-inclusive list.

2. Exposure to Pornography

This could have been intentional or unintentional exposure to explicit cable TV movies, porn videos, porn magazines, or internet pornography. This could also be sexually explicit romance novels or cyber sex chat rooms.

3. Rape or Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault is a sexual act done to a person against their will. This can range anywhere from uninvited touch to non-concentual penetration of any sort. Sexual assault is a crime of violence and power.

4. Abortion

This is an operation or other procedure to end a pregnancy by removing an embryo or fetus from a women’s womb.

5. Abandonment by Father

This abandonment could range anywhere from a workaholic dad all the way to a father who physically left the home. The father piece appeared to be a big common factor amongst us. Many didn’t have fathers who emotionally connected with them.

Each one of the traumas that I listed above I have seen as common threads among women who are challenged with sexual addiction, love addiction, relationship addiction or just sexual mismanagement. You can see how any of the traumas above could affect a woman’s beliefs about her own self worth and her sexuality.

Sexual trauma has the ability to distort a person’s sexual attitudes and can lead to promiscuity, sexual anorexia, detachment during sex, sabotage of intimate relationships or even compulsive sexual behaviors such as solo sex, cyber sex and multiple affairs.

If you see yourself in any of the above scenarios, you could benefit from a program that is set up to give you the necessary information about how you wound up on this path, accountability and support for your transformation.